franandaj
I'm so happy, I could BOUNCE!
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
Well several of you chimed in on my poll that shorter updates were easier to read. I responded similarly to another TR writers query, so I concur. I started to count the number of photos already present in what I had written for the next update and I was already at three different posts, so I’ve cut it off at two, and I have enough pictures for three more posts for the next update!
Day 5
I slept well through the night, although I may have awakened around 3AM, as nature called, but I did go right back to sleep. I did notice that Fran was sounding a bit better, not coughing and her nasal passage had cleared up somewhat. I woke up again at 5:15 and checked the Navigator for Sunrise time. It was at 6:38AM. I considered sitting up and waiting, but changed my mind and went back to sleep.
It was 6:50 when I woke up. I rushed to the verandah and the sun was mostly up, and we were pulling into port. I grabbed my pool cover up and the camera and dashed out on the verandah. I made the right choice not to try for the Sunrise, it was on the other side of the ship. It would have been mostly visible to the Aft cabins.
So instead I took pictures of the port as we pulled in. Here we are approaching the island.
Looking back out to sea.
And looking right out front from our verandah.
We would be docking on the opposite side of the pier from the ship you can already see there.
I looked at all the giant houses here thinking they were huge mansions, when in actuality they were multi family properties. I also watched the cars go up and down that crazy road in the center, not realizing I would be riding on it just a few hours.
Once the ship had turned around, our cabin was on the side for the sun. A little too late to see it rise though.
Once we were docked, Fran started to wake up a little. She wanted to get out of the tour we had booked.
First a little background on that. Disney excursions are not at all disabled friendly. Most of them say that you will be denied access if you show up on a motorized scooter or power wheelchair. There was only one excursion that sounded doable for Fran and that was an island tour. Unfortunately it included and hour of “shopping” and while Fran likes shopping, she doesn’t like to do it without her scooter. Standing for an hour would be agony for her. The thing with booking through Disney is that if something goes wrong they won't leave you behind on the island, if you're on your own, well not so much!
I really wanted to get out and see the Island, I mean I’d never been to Tortola before and it sounded exotic. So we decided to try something we had never done. Book something ourselves with a private company.
A few months before the trip, I started researching cab companies, reading reviews and such, and found a couple who had good reputations and contacted them. Since the Disney excursion was 4-5 hours and that included an hour long stop, plus a few more, it seemed to me that 3 hours was a good amount of time to allot for an island tour. When I heard back from the cab companies, only one said they would let Fran put the scooter in the back of the car. They had a Ford Transit Connect which would be ample for both of us. So that decision was easy, the next was the timing. There was no way I wanted to risk being late back to the ship so we needed to be done in early afternoon. We also didn't want to start too early because you all know how we get up and just hop right out of bed. Well at least one of us has that ability.
Our original plan was that we would have breakfast at Royal Palace and then head out to meet our tour guide. Since on Google maps it appeared to be a pretty good distance from the ship to the port, we decided we should leave ample time after breakfast to get off the ship. Knowing that breakfast was served from 8:00-9:30 and that we run on the late end of the spectrum, we figured that we could count on being done at breakfast by 10AM at the latest, so 11AM would be a good time to start the tour. That would put us boarding the ship just after 2PM well before the 5PM sail away, so that's what we set up.
Back to our first port day. Fran didn't want to take the tour since she hadn't felt well the night before. But I didn't want to ride on my own in a foreign place. I said I would, go out on the port, just pay them, say “thank you, but not today.” It was a good chunk of money, cash, as that was all they would take. Fran didn't like that idea, so she agreed to go. As I mentioned earlier, we had planned to have a sit down breakfast. The compromise for her going on the tour was that I would bring back breakfast from Cabanas. I got some cereal and fruit for me, with a little ham and cheese. I got Fran a couple croissants (plain and almond), a yogurt, and some bacon and sausage.
We barely finished half of this stuff. I chilled watching the end of Bedknobs and Broomsticks that I slept through the night before. I told her we had to be on our way off the ship by 10AM. But it was barely 9AM, so I told her she could sleep a little longer, I was going to go get coffee.
I took my coffee down to Deck 4 and watched the people disembarking. I also wanted to get an idea of how long the walk to the pier was going to be.
These poor suckers on the ship out there had to tender in.
Pictures inside the ship on the way back to the room.
I went back to the room to wake Fran up. We were supposed to meet our guide at 11AM. She sat up and felt dizzy. I let her sit for a while and soon the dizziness subsided. After she was dressed we started to get on our way. She made sure that I knew she was going on this tour under duress, and was only doing it “because she loved me.”
It took less time to get down the pier than we thought, so we had some time to explore the immediate port area. It was full of touristy shops, perhaps they were local merchants, but there wasn't much that interested us.
I took some pictures of the ship.
We walked around the shops for a little.
By this time it was 11AM and we headed back to where we were told to meet our guide.
[Continued in Next Post]
Day 5
I slept well through the night, although I may have awakened around 3AM, as nature called, but I did go right back to sleep. I did notice that Fran was sounding a bit better, not coughing and her nasal passage had cleared up somewhat. I woke up again at 5:15 and checked the Navigator for Sunrise time. It was at 6:38AM. I considered sitting up and waiting, but changed my mind and went back to sleep.
It was 6:50 when I woke up. I rushed to the verandah and the sun was mostly up, and we were pulling into port. I grabbed my pool cover up and the camera and dashed out on the verandah. I made the right choice not to try for the Sunrise, it was on the other side of the ship. It would have been mostly visible to the Aft cabins.
So instead I took pictures of the port as we pulled in. Here we are approaching the island.
Looking back out to sea.
And looking right out front from our verandah.
We would be docking on the opposite side of the pier from the ship you can already see there.
I looked at all the giant houses here thinking they were huge mansions, when in actuality they were multi family properties. I also watched the cars go up and down that crazy road in the center, not realizing I would be riding on it just a few hours.
Once the ship had turned around, our cabin was on the side for the sun. A little too late to see it rise though.
Once we were docked, Fran started to wake up a little. She wanted to get out of the tour we had booked.
First a little background on that. Disney excursions are not at all disabled friendly. Most of them say that you will be denied access if you show up on a motorized scooter or power wheelchair. There was only one excursion that sounded doable for Fran and that was an island tour. Unfortunately it included and hour of “shopping” and while Fran likes shopping, she doesn’t like to do it without her scooter. Standing for an hour would be agony for her. The thing with booking through Disney is that if something goes wrong they won't leave you behind on the island, if you're on your own, well not so much!
I really wanted to get out and see the Island, I mean I’d never been to Tortola before and it sounded exotic. So we decided to try something we had never done. Book something ourselves with a private company.
A few months before the trip, I started researching cab companies, reading reviews and such, and found a couple who had good reputations and contacted them. Since the Disney excursion was 4-5 hours and that included an hour long stop, plus a few more, it seemed to me that 3 hours was a good amount of time to allot for an island tour. When I heard back from the cab companies, only one said they would let Fran put the scooter in the back of the car. They had a Ford Transit Connect which would be ample for both of us. So that decision was easy, the next was the timing. There was no way I wanted to risk being late back to the ship so we needed to be done in early afternoon. We also didn't want to start too early because you all know how we get up and just hop right out of bed. Well at least one of us has that ability.
Our original plan was that we would have breakfast at Royal Palace and then head out to meet our tour guide. Since on Google maps it appeared to be a pretty good distance from the ship to the port, we decided we should leave ample time after breakfast to get off the ship. Knowing that breakfast was served from 8:00-9:30 and that we run on the late end of the spectrum, we figured that we could count on being done at breakfast by 10AM at the latest, so 11AM would be a good time to start the tour. That would put us boarding the ship just after 2PM well before the 5PM sail away, so that's what we set up.Back to our first port day. Fran didn't want to take the tour since she hadn't felt well the night before. But I didn't want to ride on my own in a foreign place. I said I would, go out on the port, just pay them, say “thank you, but not today.” It was a good chunk of money, cash, as that was all they would take. Fran didn't like that idea, so she agreed to go. As I mentioned earlier, we had planned to have a sit down breakfast. The compromise for her going on the tour was that I would bring back breakfast from Cabanas. I got some cereal and fruit for me, with a little ham and cheese. I got Fran a couple croissants (plain and almond), a yogurt, and some bacon and sausage.
We barely finished half of this stuff. I chilled watching the end of Bedknobs and Broomsticks that I slept through the night before. I told her we had to be on our way off the ship by 10AM. But it was barely 9AM, so I told her she could sleep a little longer, I was going to go get coffee.
I took my coffee down to Deck 4 and watched the people disembarking. I also wanted to get an idea of how long the walk to the pier was going to be.
These poor suckers on the ship out there had to tender in.
Pictures inside the ship on the way back to the room.
I went back to the room to wake Fran up. We were supposed to meet our guide at 11AM. She sat up and felt dizzy. I let her sit for a while and soon the dizziness subsided. After she was dressed we started to get on our way. She made sure that I knew she was going on this tour under duress, and was only doing it “because she loved me.”
It took less time to get down the pier than we thought, so we had some time to explore the immediate port area. It was full of touristy shops, perhaps they were local merchants, but there wasn't much that interested us.
I took some pictures of the ship.
We walked around the shops for a little.
By this time it was 11AM and we headed back to where we were told to meet our guide.
[Continued in Next Post]
Your comment wasn't even there when I started pasting my update into the browser! And honestly I had mis-counted. I would have posted one at the bottom of page 14 and one at the top of page 15, if you hadn't snuck in! I thought pkondz had taken the last post.
So now you know how to get her to do these things!
